The projects developed under the OYO (Own Your Own) brand by Ravenbourne are a series of business unit estates specifically aimed at smaller companies looking to own their business accommodation. The option of leasing units is however also available. Often occupiers initially move in as tenants but later buy the freehold of their unit either when their lease expires or by exercising an option to purchase granted for the duration of the lease. Units acquired on a freehold basis for owner/occupation, as well as being held directly by the business, are sometimes held in a SSIP (Small Self Invested Pension), in a SAP (Self Administered Pension), in the company’s directors’ pension scheme or held personally by the business owner and then leased back to the business.
The OYO Business Units estates are built to the same standards as the larger institutional multi-let industrial/warehouse schemes developed by Ravenbourne. To date nine schemes, totalling 382,850ft² (35,568m²) and providing a total of 167 units, have been completed. These are located at Castle Vale in Birmingham, Andover and Portsmouth in Hampshire, Thame and Wallingford in Oxfordshire, Littlehampton in West Sussex, Dagenham Dock in the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham, Sittingbourne in Kent and Belvedere in the London Borough of Bexley. A second phase at Belvedere is now under construction and planning permission has recently been obtained for a second phase of development at Portsmouth.